Chris Lorenz

You got your history, I got mine‘

’
Some reflections on truth and objectivity in history*

Although Henry Ford only needed a one-liner to express a sceptical view about
history ( History is bunk“), since the 1980ies the critique of history has tur-
”
ned into a booming intellectual industry. Since the international rise of post-
modernism volume-length doubts have been raised concerning history that is
more than just subjective. The idea that history has little to do with the past,
but much to do with the present and with power, has gained a remarkable
popularity, so there are good reasons for taking seriously the rising tide of
scepticism about the possibility of historical knowledge.1
∗
I would like to thank Allan Megill (University of Virginia), Christoph Conrad (Centre for
Comparative History of Europe, Berlin) and Tannelie Blom (University of Maastricht) for
their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
1 See, for instance, the new journal Rethinking History (first issue spring 1997), edited by
Keith Jenkins and Alan Munslow, and the volumes in the Routledge series History and
’
theory‘. By post-modernism I refer to intellectual positions that combine two fundamental
ideas: 1. the incredulity towards meta-narratives“ of history (Lyotard), such as Marxism,
”
liberalism and modernism. This amounts to a rejection of all material philosophy of history
and to a fundamental rejection of reducing any plurality to a unity, i. e., anti-reductionism
and anti-unitarism; 2. the rejection of the idea that there is a reality independent of subject-
positions, that is: anti-objectivism. Anti-objectivism results in a rejection of the discussion of
reality independent of its symbolic representations, especially its linguistic representations.
All the relevant ideas have been developed independently by a wide range of modern thin-
kers, only their post-modern combination is original. Therefore Wolfgang Welsch’s proposal
to view postmodernism as a recent and radical form of modernism makes sense. The same
goes for his proposal to distinguish between the vulgar and the interesting variants of postmo-
dern thought. Alas, in history we often encounter the vulgar variant. See: Wolfgang Welsch,
Unsere postmoderne Moderne, Berlin 1997, 1–8. See also the editors’ introduction to: Chri-
stoph Conrad and Martina Kessel (eds.), Geschichte schreiben in der Postmoderne. Beiträge
zur aktuellen Diskussion, Stuttgart 1994, 9–36, and the special issue Klios Texte“ of the
”
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 4 (1993), Nr. 3. For a compilation of
articles concerning the debate on postmodernism and history, see also: Keith Jenkins, ed.,
The postmodern history reader, London 1997. Jenkins himself, as I shall argue, represents
vulgar‘ postmodernism in Welsch’s terminology.
’

ÖZG 10.1999.4 563

 What I shall do in this article is to present a defence of history against some
widespread forms of postmodern scepticism.2 My defence of history will deal
with three (interrelated) arguments, which are used frequently in postmodern
debates to cast doubts on the possibility of writing history. The first argument
questions the possibility of truth in history. The second raises objections to the
possibility of objectivity in history. And the third and last sceptical argument
questions the possibility of writing history in a non-instrumental and non-
legitimizing way.
The first sceptical argument casts doubts on the possibility that historians
can write true accounts of the past. This argument usually rests on the obser-
vation that all historical accounts are framed in language and on the argument
that there is always a gap between the linguistic representation of reality and
reality itself. In essence, this argument boils down to the thesis that it is impos-
sible in principle to represent historical reality truthfully in language. Michel
Foucault, Michel de Certeau and Hayden White have developed arguments to
that effect, although their analyses of historiography are highly complex and
certainly cannot be reduced to these arguments alone.3
The second sceptical argument questions the principal possibility for hi-
storians to write objective accounts of the past. This sceptical argument must
be distinguished from the first, because the possibility of a true account of
the past is only a necessary and not a sufficient condition for the possibility
of an objective account. For example, one might admit the possibility of true
accounts of the past, but at the same time deny the possibility of adequate or
objective accounts.
From the denial of objectivity it is usually only a short step towards embra-
cing relativism in all forms. It therefore comes as no surprise that such is also
the case with postmodernist denials of objectivity, although the postmodern
arguments actually differ from the classical relativist ones. In classical relati-
vism, the impossibility of objective representation is usually founded on the
thesis that historians as persons are necessarily standortgebunden‘, selective,
’
prejudiced, perspectival, involved, partisan, and the like. In post-modern rela-
tivism, however, the impossibility of objective representation is usually based
on the thesis that the language – or interpretation – of the historian precludes

2 Cf. Richard J. Evans, In defence of history, London 1997; Keith Windschuttle, The kil-
ling of history. How literary critics and social theorists are murdering our past, New York
1997; C. Behan McCullagh, The truth of history, London and New York 1998; Chris Lorenz,
Konstruktion der Vergangenheit, Köln, Weimar and Wien 1997.
3 On White see Chris Lorenz, Can histories be true? Narrativism, positivism and the me-
”
taphorical turn“, in: History and Theory 37 (1998), 309–329, and Herta Nagl-Docekal, Läßt
sich die Geschichtsphilosophie tropologisch fundieren? Kritische Anmerkungen zu Hayden
White, in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 4 (1993), 466–476. See
also Michel de Certeau, The writing of history, New York 1988. On Foucault, see below.

564 ÖZG 10.1999.4

any possibility of objectivity.4 Postmodern relativists thus shift the focus from
the person of the historian to the language of the historian; the focus is shifted
from the representing subject to the language of representation.
This second sceptical argument, which denies the possibility of objectivity,
is only one short step from the third argument, which claims the instrumentality
and the legitimizing function of all history. The basic idea is that if history
cannot be objective, it must be instrumental. And if history cannot be universal
and neutral, it must be subservient to some particular interest (an argument
commonly found in the sociology of knowledge).
I shall now deal in turn with the three arguments which are used in ques-
tioning the status and legitimacy of history writing as such.

1. Can histories be true?

I shall begin by analysing the argument which states that it is impossible for
historians to give a true account of past reality. This argument is often borro-
wed from two famous thinkers who originally developed this train of thought.5
According to Hayden White (whose intellectual origins lie in structuralism) hi-
storians do not present true accounts of the past, but fictions of factual repre-
”
sentation“ which are akin to literary accounts. For Michel Foucault, whatever
truth a historical account may claim is the product of a specific discourse‘ with
’
its own politics of truth‘ and regime of truth‘. Therefore, truth is not constitu-
’ ’
ted by the correspondence between language and reality, but is a socio-political
construct, dependent on a specific regime of truth‘ and characterized by speci-
’
fic power relations. Authors who use this sceptical argument thus tend to put
the terms reality‘, fact‘ and truth‘ in italics or between quotation marks.6
’ ’ ’
All these authors emphasize that knowledge of reality presupposes some
kind of linguistic construction, because the concepts, statements, and stories
in which our knowledge of reality is formulated, are not found in reality itself;
they first have to be constructed. Even the past is not found as such and
has to be conceptually constructed. Reality as represented, and as known, is

4 For this reason I reject Ankersmit’s distinction between a vocabulary of representation

and of interpretation, because all representations are interpretations. I agree with Gada-
mer’s claim that all knowledge involves interpretation. See Frank R. Ankersmit, History and
tropology. The rise and fall of metaphor, Berkeley 1994, 97–125.
5 This is not the place to evaluate the work of these important thinkers in toto nor to place
their arguments in their precise context. Many of their formulations can plausibly be read as
conscious provocations.
6 See Keith Jenkins, Introduction, in: Idem, ed., Postmodern History Reader, as footnote
1, 1–36, esp. 5, where he refers to the residues of old certaintist‘ modernisms“ (objectivi-
” ’
ty, disinterestedness, the facts, truth) and proposes to change them into their postmodern
( postist‘) equivalents‘ such as readings, positions, reality effects, truth effects“.
’ ’ ”

ÖZG 10.1999.4 565

therefore always a conceptually constructed reality or, to use a postmodern
term, a product of discourse‘.
’
To this valid and important insight – which incidentally had already been
developed by modern epistemology – many post-modernists give a special twist,
which leads to their sceptical position. This is the point at which they part com-
pany with all realists and constructivists of a non-sceptical persuasion. Accor-
ding to their arguments, realistic representation is impossible: when one uses
linguistic constructs to represent reality, one at the same time fictionalizes‘
’
reality, i. e. one transforms the representation into some kind of fiction‘.7 This
’
argument is usually based on the correct observation that during the process of
linguistic representation something is added‘ to reality, namely, the linguistic
’
instruments used to represent it. For example when I watch an appalling foot-
ball game between Belgium and Holland and give an account of it by writing:
The football match between the Red Devils and the Orange Lions looked like
”
a bloodthirsty war“, I am adding‘ linguistic characteristics to the represen-
’
tation of the football match that were not present as such in reality. Literally
speaking, there were of course no red devils nor orange lions in the stadium and
neither was there a bloodthirsty war. I have merely added some imaginative
metaphors to my description of reality, just as writers of fiction do.
According to the post-modern argument, this is exactly what happens in
all history writing: historians add‘ to their accounts of past reality linguistic
’
instruments, such as metaphors and plot structures, that were not present
in the past itself. According to Hayden White and his pupils, historians can
therefore be said to fictionalize the past, and history writing is basically an
extended metaphor“ and the fiction of factual representation“. Remarkably,
” ”
several authors who have advocated the return of narrative‘ to (the philosophy
’
of) history, have at the same time destroyed the epistemological credentials of
narrative.
Thus, sceptical postmodernists argue that linguistic construction in histo-
ry necessarily generates some kind of representational inadequacy. They also
argue that, as a consequence of this inadequacy, realistic representations acqui-
re a fictional element. Their conclusion is that, because of this fictional element,
the traditional idea of truth is no longer valid for realistic representations. This
conclusion follows logically from the initial premisses of the postmodern argu-
ment because truth basically means correspondence between reality and the
representation of reality in language; or, in other words, adequate represen-

7 What is meant by the term fiction‘ is the crucial issue. See Ann Rigney, Semantic slides:
’
history and the concept of fiction, in: Rolf Thorstendahl and Irmline Veit-Brause (eds.),
History-making: the intellectual and social formation of a discipline, Stockholm 1996, 31–47.
Authors who have introduced the term recently into historical discourse – especially White
and de Certeau – all contrast fiction‘ to factuality‘. For White’s (shifting) positions on this
’ ’
issue see Lorenz, Can histories, as footnote 3, esp. 319.

566 ÖZG 10.1999.4

tation. It will be obvious that, by its very definition, fiction cannot correspond
to reality. (How correspondence and adequacy are defined is, of course, alto-
gether another matter.8 )
Post-modernists of this kind argue that, due to the radical difference and
the unbridgeable gap between language and reality, it is impossible to repre-
sent reality in language in a truthful manner.9 Instead of true accounts of the
past, authors like White, Barthes, de Certeau and Foucault, speak of ideolo-
’
gical‘, mythical‘, fictional‘ or imaginative‘ accounts of the past. When truth
’ ’ ’
is declared dead in post-modernism, only its other‘ – myth, fiction, ideology –
’
remains.10
This is a remarkably sceptical argument and in order to evaluate it more

8 Since Wittgenstein’s later work, it has become obvious that correspondence cannot be
interpreted as a simple relationship between language and uninterpreted reality. The corre-
spondence relation can only be conceived of as a – constructed – relation within the lingui-
stic framework, in which reality is described. My point is, therefore, that constructing is not
identical to fictionalizing, but a legitimate and necessary cognitive activity. See Chris Lorenz,
Historical knowledge and historical reality. A plea for internal realism‘, in: Brian Fay et al.
’
(eds.), History and Theory. Contemporary readings, Oxford 1998, 342–377. See also Martin
Bunzl, Real history. Reflections on historical practice, London and New York 1997, 77: To
”
speak of the categories of experience as constructed is not to say that we cannot ask questions
about the circumstances of that construction. Nor that we cannot answer these questions in
terms about which there is no fact of the matter.“ For Wittgenstein’s notion of truth see:
Matthias Kross, Klarheit statt Wahrheit. Evidenz und Gewißheit bei Ludwig Wittgenstein,
in: Matthias Kross and Gary Smith (eds.), Die ungewisse Evidenz. Für eine Kulturgeschichte
des Beweises, Berlin 1998, 95–139.
9 Some – like Foucault – defend this idea for all types of linguistic constructs, from statements
to stories. Others, such as White and Ankersmit, only defend this idea for more complex
linguistic constructs, like complete stories, and exempt singular statements.
10 This line of argument is exemplified by Michel de Certeau, who invokes the authority
of Roland Barthes. Although he defines historiography as a relation between the real and
discourse which is controlled by methodical operations, at the same time he opposes the real‘
’
to its historiographical representations and characterizes the products of historiographical
discourse as fictional‘ and ideological‘. See de Certeau, Writing, as footnote 3, 75, where
’ ’
he refers to an ideology of real‘ or true‘ historical facts‘“ in history. At the same time, he
” ’ ’ ’
uncouples meaning from reality and couples meaning to the construction of models; ibidem,
79: Research ascribes objects for itself that take the shape of its practice“; ibidem, 81: The
” ”
relation with the real becomes a relation among the terms of an operation“. The objects
”
that he (Braudel, CL) proposed for research were determined in relation to an operation
to be undertaken (not a reality to be rejoined), and in respect to existing models. A result
of this enterprise, the fact‘ is the designation of a relation“. Hence, 41–42: Historians are
’ ”
those who assemble not so much facts as signifiers. They seem to tell of facts while, in
effect, they express meanings which moreover refer what is noted (what historians hold to
be relevant) to a conception of whatever is notable. The signified of historical discourse is
made from ideological or imaginary structures; but they are effected by a referent outside of
the discourse that is inaccessible in itself“. Cf. ibidem, 10: Thus the past is the fiction of
”
the present“. A similar line of argument is defended by Jenkins, Introduction, as footnote
6, who also identifies all constructive‘ activity as non-cognitive and therefore as ideological‘
’ ’
and interested‘. For a far more illuminating analysis of the constructive‘ dimensions of
’ ’

ÖZG 10.1999.4 567

precisely, we will have to look at the role played in history by metaphor and
metaphorical statement, such as the ones I have used to describe the football
match between Belgium and Holland. We have seen that authors like White and
de Certeau hold that the use of metaphor by historians entails the introduction
of fictional and imaginative characteristics into their representation of reality.
White therefore refers to history as the fiction of factual representation“ and
”
he characterizes historical narratives as extended metaphors“.
”
Plausible as this argument may seem, on closer analysis it can easily be
refuted because it denies the metaphorical dimension of all language, including
descriptive language. Indeed, one could argue that our language is replete with
metaphors which are no longer recognized as such. All natural language can be
regarded as a reservoir of metaphors, dead and alive. In other words, we are
speaking metaphorically all the time. For example, when I describe the mouth
’
of a river‘ or the neck of a bottle‘, or say that conference was a nightmare‘, I
’ ’
am using metaphorical language knowingly or unknowingly11 (and only Monty
Python’s John Cleese presents a real nutshell while putting an argument in a
’
nutshell‘). For most of us, the metaphorical dimension of language would not
be a good enough reason for holding that it is impossible to give a truthful des-
cription of the mouth of a river, the neck of a bottle or a nightmare conference‘.
’
Without the presupposition that this type of metaphorical statement can be
true or untrue, it seems impossible to make sense of the distinction between
(true) descriptions and (untrue) misdescriptions of the world. Thus, postmo-
dernist sceptics also have to be sceptical about this distinction, which would
appear to be fundamental for (successfully) coping with the world. Furthermo-
re, scepticism must explain the difference between successful and unsuccessful
representations of the world without harking back to some notion of truth. To
date, however, no arguments to that effect have been presented.
Claiming truth for a representation (of, say a football match) basically
means claiming that the representation corresponds to reality and that one is
prepared to back up this reality-claim‘ with arguments. Given that I recognize
’
that reality-claims, as is the case with all claims to knowledge, have to be argued
for, it follows that I am prepared to revise or eventually drop my truth-claim
when confronted with valid counter-arguments.
This willingness is presupposed by all who enter into a rational discussion,

language and its relation to the referential dimensions see: Charles Taylor, Human agency
and language. Philosophical papers, Vol. 1, Cambridge 1985, 213–293.
11 I subscribe to Mary Hesse’s theory of metaphor. Hesse analyses the distinction between
literal and metaphorical language as an analogue of the distinction between observational
and theoretical language in (the philosophy of) science. See Mary Hesse, Models, metaphor
and truth, in: Frank R. Ankersmit and Jan J. Mooij, (eds.), Knowledge and language, vol.
3: Metaphor and knowledge, Dordrecht, Boston and London 1993, 50–67. A similar position
is developed by McCullagh, Truth, as footnote 2, 75–82.

568 ÖZG 10.1999.4

because the exchange of arguments is otherwise meaningless. The fact that
postmodern sceptics too have staged discussions with their opponents and have
put forward their views in the form of arguments, illustrates my (Habermasian)
point. In conclusion, therefore, the willingness to back up, revise and eventually
drop reality-claims on the basis of arguments is not culturally or ideologically
determined, as some postmodernist and postcolonial theorists try to argue, but
is actually an integral part of what it means to argue and to be rational in a
universal sense.12
This leads me to my final set of reservations about the sceptical argu-
ment. These are of a conceptual nature, because notions like fiction, myth and
ideology only make sense if they contrast with something such as fact, science
and truth. All these concepts derive their meaning from their opposites and
therefore presuppose each other, just as the notion of a liar only makes sense
in contrast to people who do not lie, i. e, who speak the truth. If everything
is fictional and mythical, fiction and myth become all-encompassing and ulti-
mately empty categories. If all life is a football match, there is no longer any
possibility playing a proper match of football, since we are all playing football
all of the time.13 Remarkably, some postmodernists who advocate the search
for conceptual opposites‘ and exclusions‘ remain utterly blind to the fact that
’ ’
any theory of ideology which conceptually excludes its opposite of true know-
ledge, is empty and incoherent. The crucial fact that reality does not dictate or
determine how it is linguistically represented, does not preclude the possibility
of multiple true representations. This, incidentially, is the message of practical
’
realism‘ or internal realism‘ 14 .)
’
How does my argument relate to the possibility of true representations in
history? For historians, it is important to note that what I have argued with
respect to truthful representation is independent of the dimension of time: it
holds as true for the present, as it does for the future or the past. In short, it
makes no difference whether we refer to events registered today, yesterday, in

12 One of the most disturbing features of some forms of postmodernism is the tendency to
question both argument and rationality as such and to criticize them as interested‘, ideologi-
’ ’
cal‘, culturally specific to the West‘ and oppressive‘. See for instance Jenkins, Introduction,
’ ’
as footnote 6, who discredits the empirical arguments of academic‘ history as bourgeois‘ and
’ ’
thus ideological‘. Cf. also Ghandi on postcolonial theory, below.
’
13 The great intellectual masters of suspicion, Marx and Nietzsche, were themselves aware
of the self-destructive potential of their all-encompassing theories of ideology. Unfortunately,
it seems that these lessons in this respect have been forgotten by the majority of those who
posture as their (post)modern pupils. For Marx and Nietzsche on truth see: Hans Barth,
Wahrheit und Ideologie, Frankfurt am Main 1974 (1961).
14 The terms were coined by Hillary Putnam, What is realism?, in: Jarrett Leplin, ed.,
Scientific realism, Berkeley 1984, 140–154. For its application to history see Lorenz, Historical
knowledge, as footnote 8, and Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob, Telling the
truth about history, New York 1994, 247–251.

ÖZG 10.1999.4 569

the last century, or in the next century. I emphasize the indifference of concepts
of truthful representation to the dimension of time, because many sceptics
have argued that the unobservability of the past creates special epistemological
problems for history.15 Michel de Certeau certainly got that wrong.16

2. Can histories be objective?

Postmodernists who defend a relativist position usually employ two sorts of

arguments for the thesis that history cannot be objective:
1. They argue that all forms of conception – including conceptions of
science and of epistemology – are conditioned by, and are relative to, parti-
cular cultures. This argument is also known as ethnocentrism.
2. They use a closely related argument, according to which all produc-
’
tion of knowledge‘ is conditioned by – and relative to – particular politics of
’
knowledge‘ or truth regimes‘.
’
These two arguments are interrelated. Both posit that knowledge, and thus
truth, can never claim to be universally valid, because both knowledge and
truth are always connected to particular circumstances or interests of some
sort, such as culture, class or gender. Both arguments thus regard all universal
claims to knowledge and truth as ideological, because any claim to universal
validity can only be a smokescreen hiding particular interests. In short, what

15 For a discussion of this problem and further references see Lorenz, Konstruktion, as
footnote 2, chapter 2 and 3.
16 Michel de Certeau invokes Popper’s authority, but he seems to miss Popper’s main point.
For Popper, the fact that scientists can never prove the truth of their statements empirically
does not imply that these statements do not claim to be true. On the contrary, the whole
point of science according to Popper’s theory of verisimilitude is that scientific statements
constantly try to get closer to the truth. The only point of falsification is to assure that
false‘ candidates for truth are eliminated. Without the quest for truth, falsification would
’
make no sense, just as the exposure of lies would make no sense without the idea of truth.
See Michel de Certeau, Heterologies: discourses on the other, Minneapolis and London 1986,
200–201: Not that it [historiography] speaks the truth; never has the historian pretended to
”
do that! Rather, with its apparatus for the critical reading of documents, the scholar effaces
error from the fables‘ of the past. The territory that he occupies is acquired by a diagnosis
’
of the false“ (...). His work is oriented to the negative, or, to borrow a more appropriate
”
term from Popper, towards falsification‘“. (...) in the past, arguments against false“ gods
’ ” ”
were used to induce belief in a true God. The process repeats itself today in contemporary
historiography: by demonstrating the presence of errors, discourse must pass off as real‘
’
whatever is placed in opposition to errors.“ A similar line of argument is found in Jenkins,
Introduction, as footnote 6, 6, according to whom the absence of certain foundations‘ nullifies
’
the quest for truth and turns all our cognitive activities into positioned expressions‘: In fact
’ ”
(sic! CL), history now appears to be just one more foundationless, positioned expression in
a world of foundationless, positioned expressions.“ Cf. Thomas Haskell’s review of Berkhofer
in: Farewell to fallibilism‘.
’

570 ÖZG 10.1999.4

the two arguments have in common is that they deny the possibility of a true
universality and generality of values. This type of argument was first presen-
ted by Nietzsche, but more recently it has been developed by Michel Foucault
and others17 . Although the two are interrelated, I will first deal with the argu-
ment of ethnocentrism and then with the argument concerning the politics of
’
knowledge‘.

2a. Ethnocentrism

The postmodernist critique of objectivity and postmodernism’s cult of diver-

sity, particularity and heterogeneity is often related to the advent of multicul-
turalism. The basic point of ethnocentrism – as well as its problems – can be
illustrated by an incident that was reported by North-Californian newspapers
in the summer of 1994. The incident revolved around an Indian man (alias a na-
tive American or Amerindian), who was arrested and tried for shooting several
legally protected eagles with a machine-gun. The Indian refused to acknowled-
ge that he was guilty of breaching the law‘ because, as he said, according to
’
Indian law, there was nothing wrong with shooting eagles, since Indians, as is
well known, need eagle feathers to fabricate their traditional outfit. U.S. law,
in his view, was an instrument to oppress Indians and to prevent them from li-
ving traditional Indian lives. In summary, this Indian citizen of the U.S. denied
the universality of U.S. law by appealing to particular Indian law and rejected
universal U.S. law as an instrument of Indian-repression.18 Note, however, that
this Indian did not reject the use of universal U.S. gun technology.
This incident is a good illustration of the postcolonial critique of Western‘
’
conceptions of objectivity and epistemology, because ethnocentrism basically
extends the Indian argument‘ from the domain of culture and law to the domain
’
of science and epistemology. Just as our Indian eagle hunter told the U.S. judge
and jury, Your conception of law and culture is not mine‘, postcolonial theory
’
tells The West‘: Your conception of science and knowledge is not the same
’ ’
as the conceptions of non-Westerners‘. Since postmodernism holds, as we saw
earlier, that all conceptions of reality are linguistic and cultural constructs,
this argument amounts to the thesis Your reality is not the same as mine‘.
’
Therefore, according to postmodernism, different cultures deal with different
conceptions of reality.
How can we deal with this postmodern argument? To begin with, we can
17 Kross rightly criticizes the Nietzschean argument in this context for introducing (the will
to) power as an unmoved mover‘. See Kross, Klarheit, as footnote 8, 95–100.
’
18 In this specific instance, the Amerindian was – historically speaking – not completely off
the track, because native Americans only became U.S. citizens and subjects to U.S. law in
1924.

ÖZG 10.1999.4 571

say that the postmodern argument raises the crucial problem of multiperspec-
tivity and the problem of whether (and how) one can understand people from
other cultures. However, as was the case with the possibility of truthful repre-
sentation, I think the postmodern argument against the possibility of – uni-
versal – objectivity has grossly overstated its case. I shall now try to analyse
where this postmodern argument has gone wrong and I shall do so by dealing
with the ethnocentric arguments from the perspective of modern theories of
interpretation.19
According to ethnocentrism, we can only interpret the world from our‘
’
own point of view, because that is the only point of view we have. Moreover,
because we are all products of specific cultures, our points of view are trapped‘
’
in those cultures. Therefore, interpretation is inevitably ethnocentric and it is
impossible to understand others as they understand themselves; we can only
ever understand them according to our own lights“ 20 .
”
The general idea behind ethnocentrism, namely that people’s conceptions
and ideas are somehow conditioned by their culture, seems to be a sound one,
although by no means brand new. The crucial question related to this idea
is, what exactly is meant by this conditioning‘ of interpretations by cultures?
’
What is implied when one states that a person’s ideas and interpretations are
conditioned‘ by his or her culture?
’
As long as conditioning‘ is taken to mean enabling‘, the ethnocentric idea
’ ’
provides valid and important insight that is supported by modern theories of
interpretation. As soon as it is recognized that all knowledge is mediated by
language, interpretation advances to the centre of the epistemological stage
because (natural) languages necessarily require interpretation.
In modern theories of interpretation there is broad consensus about three
characteristics of interpretation, which show a superficial family resemblance‘
’
to the ethnocentric view.
1. Interpretation is a holistic and circular process, which means that all
interpretation requires a projection of meaning of the interpreted object (a
Sinn-Entwurf‘ and a Vorgriff auf das Ganze‘, to use Gadamer’s terms) from
’ ’
which the interpreter starts interpreting.21
2. Interpretation requires a stock of tacit knowledge or a tradition, from
which the interpreter can derive projections of meaning, alias his or her inter-
pretative pre-judgements‘ (Vor-Urteile). The interpretation of culture is not
’
possible in a context devoid of meaning, because an initial hunch about the
meaning of what is to be interpreted is necessary before the work of inter-
19 My argument in case is based on James Bohman, New philosophy of social science. Pro-
blems of indeterminacy, Oxford 1991, 112–124.
20 Ibidem, 113.
21 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundzüge einer philosophischen Herme-
neutik, 3rd. enlarged ed., Tübingen 1972.

572 ÖZG 10.1999.4

pretation can be started. This hunch is the ignition‘ for every interpretative
’
take-off‘. In this respect interpretation can never be objective – in the sense of
’
lacking presuppositions – and interpretation always remains embedded in the
tradition from which the hunches are originally derived, just as ethnocentrism
posits. Thus, interpretation is always a reciprocal process between interpreter
and interpretandum, aptly described by Gadamer as a fusion of two horizons
( Horizontverschmelzung‘).
’
3. Interpretation is always
a) partial – there can be no complete interpretation of anything,
b) perspectival – all interpretation is interpretation from a particular point of
view embedded‘ within a particular tradition – and
’
c) revisable – all interpretation is open to later revisions.
Once these points have been accepted, it is easy to see – with Gadamer
– why the process of interpretation will never come to an end and why it is
difficult to say on what grounds one interpretation should be preferable to
another.
On closer analysis, the postmodern and ethnocentric attack on the idea of
objectivity can be seen as a radicalization of modern theories of interpretation.
The first two characteristics of interpretation – its holistic character and the
necessity of a tradition, from which the interpreter can derive his/her horizon
of presuppositions and expectations – are transformed in ethnocentrism from
enabling into limiting conditions of interpretation, to use James Bohman’s ter-
minology. By this I mean that ethnocentrism not only holds that traditions
enable individuals to develop interpretations, but also that they embody par-
ticular limits that cannot be transcended. The enabling conditions of cultural
traditions are thus imperceptibly transformed into conceptual limits or prisons;
once socialized into a cultural tradition, individuals are imprisoned by it for
life. To stick to this metaphor implies that, culturally speaking, according to
ethnocentrism we are all serving life sentences.
A similar radicalization can be observed in relation to the third characteri-
stic of interpretation, namely its perspectivity, and consequently, its partiality
and revisability. Perspectives deriving from cultural traditions are also radica-
lized by ethnocentrism from enabling into limiting conditions of interpretation:
once you have acquired a perspective, you cannot escape or transcend it. It is
impossible, therefore, to say that one perspective is to be preferred over an-
other, because such a judgement presupposes a meta-perspective, from which
particular perspectives can be judged. The valid argument that nowhere provi-
des an objective‘ view is thus radicalized into a relativistic praise of the view
’
from anywhere. One perspective is just as good as another.
It then comes as no surprise that the last characteristic of interpretation,
its permanent revisability, is also radicalized in a sceptical direction. If it is

ÖZG 10.1999.4 573

possible to revise interpretations continually, it is senseless to make comparative
quality judgements, because all such judgements will soon be blown away by
the winds of time. Hence the sceptical attitude is the only sound one, quod erat
demonstrandum.
In analysing the ethnocentric position as a radicalization of modern theo-
ries of interpretation, I have already indicated its main problems. Its major
problem lies in the unwarranted transformation of the enabling conditions of
interpretation into the limiting conditions of interpretation. In the first place,
this transformation is unwarranted because the empirical problems we face in
trying to transcend cultural horizons or perspectives cannot be transformed in-
to logical problems without further (transcendental) proof. The empirical fact
that you or I may have practical problems in understanding the point of view
of an Indian eagle hunter who machine-gunned protected eagles, does not logi-
cally entail the impossibility of people like us, i. e. Westerners‘, understanding
’
Indians in an objective‘ way. Ethnocentrism, however, transforms empirical dif-
’
ficulties in interpreting other cultures‘ into logical impossibilities. It is obvious
’
that this step does not constitute a valid argument.
Secondly, this transformation is unwarranted because the empirical varia-
bility of interpretation through time – alias its time index – does not logically
entail the conclusion that interpretation changes through time in an arbitrary
way. The fact that interpretations do change through time does not imply that
the process of interpretation is not guided by evidence, nor that the evoluti-
on of interpretations is not guided by intersubjective epistemological criteria,
such as coherence and correctness.22 The development and selection of better
interpretations over the years means progress in the long run, and since Popper
we know that progress in the relative quality of knowledge constitutes all the
objectivity‘ that there is to be had – both in the natural and in the human
’
sciences.23
To sum up: the sceptical argument against the possibility of objective‘
’
representation in history does not stand up to critical analysis, because ethno-
centrism fails to adduce the necessary arguments to prove that the empirical
problems involved in trying to transcend and widen our cultural horizons, and
thus achieve (relative) objectivity‘, are of a logical nature. Besides this pro-
’
blem, ethnocentrism suffers from the same defect as all other relativist posi-

22 See, for instance, Raymond Martin, Progress in historical studies, in: History and Theory
37 (1998), 14–40. This does not, of course, imply that these norms are unequivocal and
function like an algorithm. They too require interpretation, which in turn explains why there
is no guarantee for consensus.
23 Hence there is no need to presuppose instant rationality‘ (Imre Lakatos) in order to
’
defend the notion of objectivity‘. For this notion of objectivity see for exampe: Mark Bevir,
’
Objectivity in history, in: History and Theory 33 (1994), 3, 328–345, and Thomas Haskell,
Objectivity is not neutrality. Explanatory schemes in history, Baltimore 1998.

574 ÖZG 10.1999.4

tions, since the relativist argument also applies to itself: if all is relative, this
also holds true for relativism. Relativists are unable to provide arguments in
favour of relativism without embracing a non-relativist argument, i. e. without
undermining their own position. Relativism is therefore ultimately incoherent.

2b. The politics of truth

One fruitful way to interpret Foucault’s conception of power/knowledge is to

interpret his theory as a critique of the Enlightenment tradition, as Charles Tay-
lor has proposed. Taylor argues convincingly that Foucault’s theory of science
and knowledge can be read as an inversion of the Enlightenment dogma that
knowledge liberates‘.24 Instead of the Enlightenment idea of a liberating truth,
’
Foucault presents the idea of a dominating truth, i. e. a truth which produces
power, constitutes a vehicle of power and is engaged in a permanent struggle.
The master metaphor of Foucault’s theory of knowledge is the metaphor of
war: I believe that one’s point of reference should not be the great model of
”
language (langage) and signs, but to that of war and battle. The history which
bears and determines us has the form of war rather than that of a language: re-
lations of power, not relations of meaning.“ 25 This, according to Foucault, has
consequences for the concept of truth: Truth isn’t outside power, or lacking
”
power (...). Truth isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted soli-
tude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves.
Truth is a thing of this world. It is produced only in virtue of multiple forms
of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its own
regime of truth, its general politics‘ of truth: that is the type of discourse which
’
it accepts and makes function as true.“ 26
In Foucault’s view, therefore, the idea of a liberating truth is a profound
illusion. There is no truth which can be rescued from systems of power, because
every such system defines its own variant of truth. Nor is there any escape from
power into freedom, for such systems of power are coextensive with human
society. We can only step from one to another.27
If we try to understand what Foucault means by regimes‘ and politics
’ ’
of truth‘ which vary with societies, it is necessary to link these notions to
his analyses of the modern human sciences, because his theory of knowledge
is directly connected to his theory of society. To cut a long and complicated

24 Charles Taylor, Foucault on freedom and truth, in: Philosophy and the human sciences.
Philosophical Papers, vol. 2, Cambridge 1985, 152–153.
25 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge, Brighton 1980, 114.
26 Ibidem, 131.
27 See Taylor, Foucault, as footnote 24, 152–153.

ÖZG 10.1999.4 575

(his)story short, in Foucault’s vision, the rise of the modern human sciences
is part of the rise of modern disciplinary society‘. According to Foucault, the
’
rise of modern individuality – the modern identity of man as an individual –
is part of this development and the modern human sciences have constructed
and sustained this type of identity ever since. By defining modern man as an
individual with an inner identity, the modern human sciences have transformed
modern man into an object of scientific‘ control and normalization; the speci-
’
ficity of their functioning is that their control is anchored in the very identities
they construct.
Although the idea of the instrumental rationality of modern science was
far from new, Foucault’s elaborations of it proved extraordinarily inspirational
and have made him one of the most influential thinkers of our time.28 Yet, Fou-
cault’s elaboration of the relationship between knowledge or truth, and power,
is at the same time extremely one-sided.29 His reversal of Clausewitz’ famous
aphorism, which makes us see politics as war carried out by other means,30
and its application to the human sciences, has certainly opened insights in-
to its repressive aspects. The theory suffers, however, from the same defects
as the Enlightenment position which Foucault reverses with Clausewitz’s help
(as is always the case with reversals in the history of ideas). Foucault totali-
zes one aspect of a specific species of knowledge production into the general
characteristic of the genus knowledge production. In doing so, he transforms
an empirical aspect of knowledge – its repressive potential – into its logical
attribute. In order to make such a move plausible, Foucault would need a tran-
scendental argument, which would prove a necessary, conceptual connection
between knowledge and power (just as ethnocentrism lacks a transcendental
argument which proving a necessary connection between perspectives and the
impossibility of transcending them). However, this transcendental proof is mis-
sing and we are merely confronted with a bold and interesting theory in need
of empirical corroboration.
In the end, Foucault’s theory of power, which denies any possibility of
freeing oneself from power, is incoherent, for the same reasons that I put for-
ward earlier in relation to the postmodern denial of the possibility of truthful
representation: if power is everywhere, and if all social relations are relations
of domination and subjugation, then all social relations are relations of power

28 The critique of instrumental rationality has, as is well known, been the major theme of
Critical Theory (alias the Frankfurt School‘) since the 1930ies.
’
29 See Alan Megill, Prophets of extremity. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Berkeley
1985, 238: He [Foucault] portrays discourse as something that goes out to do battle“.
”
30 Michel Foucault, The history of sexuality. Volume 1: An introduction, New York 1980,
95: Should we not turn the expression around, then, and say that politics is war pursued by
”
other means?“

576 ÖZG 10.1999.4

and power becomes an empty concept.31 If you remove freedom as the opposite
of power, power simply ends up with no other‘.32 . If we cannot discriminate
’
conceptually between making love and making war – and just state that all
human relations are relations of power – then what can we say, except that in
Foucault’s night of power all cats are indiscriminately grey?33
The same argument applies to Foucault’s coupling of truth to power, i. e.
his concept of truth regime‘, which is nowadays used by some to discredit aca-
’ ’
demic‘ history altogether.34 By denying the possibility of truthful representa-
tion on the part of objective‘ science and by connecting truth at a conceptual
’
level with power ( power/knowledge‘), all science turns into ideology and all
’
ideology turns into science. Foucault’s coupling of knowledge and power thus
transforms both science and ideology into all-encompassing, and thus empty,
categories. In the end, Newtonian science ends up in the same bag as Christian
and proletarian science‘ or even Scientology.35
’
Thus, the basic argument against connecting truth conceptually to power
is that it simply robs us of a distinction – between science and ideology – which
most of us regard as valid and important. Significantly, this also holds true for

31 Ibidem, 93–94: Power is everywhere, not because it embraces everything, but because it
”
comes from everywhere“. Power is not an institution, and not a structure, neither is it a
”
certain strength we are endowed with: it is a name that one attributes to a complex strategical
situation in a particular society“. Relations of power are not in a position of exteriority with
”
respect to other types of relationships (economic processes, knowledge relationships, sexual
relations), but are immanent in the latter“. See also Foucault, Power/Knowledge, as footnote
25, 187: Between every point of the social body, between a man and a woman, between the
”
members of a family, between a master and his pupil, between everybody who knows and
everyone who does not, there exist relations of power (...)“
32 On this point I agree again with Taylor, who argues that Foucault’s idea of power without
a subject cannot be upheld. Foucault ends up with a kind of Schopenhauerian will to power,
ungrounded in, and unrelated to, human action. See Taylor, Foucault, as footnote 24, 167 ff.
33 The fact that Foucault introduces the concept of resistance as an opposite to power does
not alter the situation, because resistance too is only defined as a relational attribute of
the social body‘: just as power is everywhere, so is resistance. See Foucault, Sexuality, as
’
footnote 30, 95: These points of resistance are present everywhere in the power network.“ It
”
is remarkable that Foucault’s analyses of power and politics ultimately converge with the
totalitarian‘ Marxian analyses he set out to criticize, because both suffer from the same
’
blind spot‘. Foucault is just as unable as Marxism to discriminate between democracy and
’
dictatorship at a conceptual level. While decentering‘ and desubjectivising‘ power and shif-
’ ’
ting his focus from macro- to micro- technologies of power‘, his concept of politics remains as
’
instrumental as the Marxist conceptions he criticizes. There is more left of Marx in Foucault
than meets the eye.
34 See Jenkins, Introduction, as footnote 6, 13, who even accuses academic‘ historians of
’
suppressing‘ alternative conceptions of history by theoretical cleansing‘. On p. 20, ibidem,
’ ’
Jenkins asserts in the same vein that normal history orders the past for the sake of the
”
present and therefore power“.
35 Because Foucault does not restrict the scope of his power/knowledge theory to a specific
domain (such as the human sciences), its claim to validity appears to be universal.

ÖZG 10.1999.4 577

Foucault himself, who repeatedly referred to truth in a realistic sense.36 To
all appearances, even Foucault himself is inconsistent in coupling knowledge to
power. What is meant by truth is simply independent of the constellation of
power in which truth-claims are presented.
Whoever claims truth for a linguistic representation of reality (in any in-
telligible sense), basically claims that the linguistic representation somehow
corresponds with reality.37 Empirical truth-claims, therefore, have an existen-
tial character, which means they claim that a specific state of affairs exists in
reality. Moreover, because existence implies existence for all and not just exi-
stence for some, truth-claims always claim a universal validity. Truth, therefore,
always means truth for all and not only truth within a specific constellation of
power: any claim to truth is universal by its very definition.
The fact that knowledge is produced in specific situations does not imply
that the validity of claims to knowledge is relative to those situations. The
latter (ethnocentric) idea is fundamentally misconceived and constitutes an
untenable form of reductionism, in which the theory of knowledge is reduced
to a sociology of knowledge. We can grasp this point most easily by applying

36 See the analysis of this problem in Bunzl, Real history, as footnote 8, 70–73, and the
following statements in Michel Foucault, Archeology of knowledge, New York 1972, 90: A
”
sentence cannot be non-significant; it refers to something by virtue of the fact that it is a
statement“, and 224: It is always possible one could speak the truth in a void (...)“, and 218:
”
The division between true and false is neither arbitrary, nor modifiable, nor institutional,
”
nor violent.“
37 Here we confront a fundamental problem with Foucault, because he rejects the common
sense (correspondence) meaning of truth without substituting a more meaningful definition.
His provisional specifications circumvent the normal‘ problem of truth, since he refers to
’
statements‘ without addressing their representational adequacy and thus their truth. See
’
Foucault, Power/Knowledge, as footnote 25, 133: Truth‘ is to be understood as a system
”’
of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation
of statements. Truth‘ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce
’
and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A regime‘
’
of truth“. In the end, his notion of truth remains as problematic as his notion of power.
Also see Megill, Prophets, as footnote 29, 244: We have already seen that Foucault views
”
genealogy as directed against the notions of an objective‘ reality, an objective‘ identity, and
’ ’
an objective‘ truth – for he sees these notions as confirming the existant order.“ (...) One
’ ”
fictions‘ history on the basis of a political reality that makes it true, one fictions‘ a politics
’ ’
not yet in existence on the basis of a historical truth. This statement marks an odd interplay
between truth and lie: a lying history is legitimized by the existence of a true‘ political
’
reality; a lying politics is legitimized by the existence of a true‘ history. To expand on this:
’
what makes true‘ a representationally inadequate account of, for example, prisons, is the
’
truth that we do live in a disciplinary society. In consequence, despite its inadequacies or
even its outright falsehoods, such an account is justified insofar as it enables us to see more
clearly the reality of this disciplinary society.“ One observes the conceptual connection in
Foucault between his theory of (disciplinary) society and his theory of (power/)knowledge:
disciplinary society functions as the observational basis of his theory of power/knowledge and
therefore is beyond the possibility of empirical refutation‘.
’

578 ÖZG 10.1999.4

the power/knowledge theory to itself. According to Foucault’s own theory, the
validity of the power/knowledge theory is also limited to a particular truth
regime, and cannot apply for other truth regimes without claiming universal
validity and thus undermining itself. Therefore, we must draw the conclusion
that Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge does not offer a solid (a priori)
argument against the possiblity of objectivity‘ in history.38
’

Postcolonial theory

Following Foucault’s line of thought, postcolonial theorists and historians have

developed original analyses of the postcolonial predicament. They have produ-
ced interesting discourse-analyses of the ways in which Westerners – especially
Europeans – have constructed the non-West‘, thereby demonstrating the ex-
’
tent to which the non-West‘ has been a projection of the fears and desires of
’
Westerners, or a simple reversal of Western self-images39 . Conceptual oppositi-
ons, such as civilisation and barbarism, maturity and childhood, development
and underdevelopment, centre and periphery, and identity and difference/ al-
terity/ otherness, have therefore structured most studies in this field. Edward
Said’s book Orientalism has become the classic of this genre.
Postcolonial theorists have also embraced Foucault’s power/knowledge the-
ory by applying it to the study of the non-West. Foucault’s critique of the
Enlightenment tradition acquired a definite anti-European twist when postco-
lonial theory revealed that the universalism inherent in Enlightenment thought
and modern science was an attempt by Western culture to gain hegemony and
power over non-Western cultures and their knowledge resources. Particularist,
local‘ knowledge was thus transformed into the opposite – the other‘ – of
’ ’
Western, universal knowledge. The task postcolonial theory has set itself is
to provincialize Europe‘ and deconstruct the European project‘ in order to
’ ’
return to its repressed non-European alternatives.
Leela Ghandi states its case as follows, in her recent introduction to the
subject: Reason is the weapon of Enlightenment philosophy and, accordingly,
”
the problem of anti-Enlightenment thought. Is it possible, after 10 November
1619 (the day Descartes dated the origin of his philosophy, CL), to imagine
non-coercive knowledges? Is it possible (...) to think non-violently?“ 40 Postco-
”
38 However, see Jenkins, Introduction, as footnote 6, 15: These questions in the end boil
”
down to one: in whose interest is the particularistic history of the lower case (= academic‘
’
history, CL) masquerading as universal?“
39 For a sound judgement regarding the sense and nonsense of discourse analysis on the
basis of Asian studies, see esp. Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Entzauberung von Asien. Europa
und die asiatischen Reiche im 18. Jahrhundert, München 1998, esp. 15–85.
40 Leela Ghandi, Postcolonial theory. A critical introduction, New York 1998, 37. Consisten-

ÖZG 10.1999.4 579

lonial studies“, on the contrary, claims that the entire field of the humanities
”
is vitiated by a compulsion to claim a spurious universality and to disguise its
political investment in the production of major‘ or dominant‘ knowledges“.41
’ ’
Postcolonial studies, by revealing the [European, CL] interests which inhabit
”
the production of knowledge“ at the same time tries to recognise the episte-
”
mological valency of non-European thought“ 42 . It does so by retrieving the
”
wide range of illegitimate, disqualified or subjugated knowledges“ that were
marginalized and repressed by dominant – that is to say, Western – models of
knowledge.
The marginalized and subjugated knowledges of the Non-West are thus
presented as the epistemological other‘ of Western science. According to post-
’
colonial theory, these subjugated non-Western knowledges have been forcefully
repressed by Western science until very recently, but are now returning un-
der the aegis of postcolonial theory.43 In this way, according to Ghandi, the
non-West may think a way out of the epistemological violence of the colonial
”
encounter“ 44 .
What we witness in Ghandi’s treatise on postcolonial theory is Foucault’s
coupling of the production of (dominant) knowledge with particular interests,
including specific relations of power, in a very pure and troubling form. We also
see the distinction between dominant and repressed or marginalized knowled-
ges, and we can observe the claim of a – particular and non-violent – episte-
mology to the latter domain.
Because I have already addressed the problems related to the conceptual
connection between power and knowledge, and the issue of particularist episte-
mologies in relation to Foucault, I will not repeat those arguments again here.
It will suffice to reiterate that claims to knowledge are universal by definition,
so the basic idea of local‘ epistemologies is incoherent. Whatever knowledge is
’
produced in the non-West, is also valid in the West – and of course vice-versa.
Once again, the conclusion is that Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge does
not offer a solid argument against the possibility of objectivity in history.
The problems of postcolonial theory on this score are attested by the para-
doxical fact that some postcolonial theorists are using the platform of Western
academia in order to reject Western rationality as an instrument of Western

cy is not one of Ghandi major fortes, as she tries to mobilize Habermas’ theory of knowledge
’
interests‘ to back up the philosophical credentials of postcolonialism’s critique of ideology.
How Habermas, as one of the figure-heads of modern Enlightenment, can be claimed for an
anti-Enlightenment project, remains a mystery. See ibidem, 53 and 62.
41 Ibidem, 44.
42 Ibidem, 52, 54.
43 The return of the repressed‘ is also a favourite train of thought in subaltern and postco-
’
lonial theory.
44 Ibidem, 63.

580 ÖZG 10.1999.4

domination45 . In practice, they appear perfectly capable of transcending their
original perspectives and cultural horizons – although this fact is contradic-
ted by their ethnocentric theory. In a way, they share the predicament of our
Indian eagle hunter from California, who used a U.S.-made machine-gun in or-
der to protect his traditional Indian life-style and who did not reject Western‘
’
U.S. technology while renouncing U.S. culture and U.S. law. Ethnocentrism,
though stringent in theory, appears to be rather selective and self-defiant in
practice – and is thus ultimately incoherent46 .

3. History, instrumentality and the legitimation of power

Until now, I have argued that the arguments often used by postmodernists
to discredit the possibility of truth and objectivity in history are unfounded.
Nevertheless, I do subscribe to their idea that historical knowledge fulfils im-
portant political and societal functions.
When we start analysing the practical functions of history, it is crucial
to formulate the problem adequately, because discussion of this topic has of-
ten been rather confused. Traditionally, there have been strong correlations
between conceptions of the practical functions of history and conceptions of
objectivity. Defenders of the ideal of objectivity in history tended to play down
its practical functions, and whoever defended history’s practical functions, ten-
ded to play down its objectivity. A neat dividing line between the two camps,
usually labelled as objectivism and relativism, was the result.
While objectivists claimed that history was only, or primarily, guided by
the search for truth ( wie es eigentlich gewesen‘), relativists claimed that hi-
’
story was at the same time conditioned by cultural, political and ideological
influences and was therefore relative to specific milieux. In consequence, rela-
tivists were far more inclined than objectivists to argue that history fullfilled
legitimizing and instrumental functions in politics and ideology. In this way, an
opposition was created between a position that emphasized the cognitive drive
of history and a position that downplayed its cognitive drive in favour of its
practical functions. Peter Novick’s recent prize-winning book on the history of

45 The inevitable question, Which interests‘ linger behind postcolonial theory?“ is ans-
” ’
wered by Ghandi – citing Said – as follows: Its social goals are non-coercive knowledge in
”
the interests of human freedom“. One recognizes the Marxist echoes of the mission of the
’
proletariat‘, but misses the ensuing discussion. Likewise, one recognizes the attempt to free
postcolonial theory itself from the unmoved mover‘ – i. e. Power – to which all other theories
’
are subject. As stated before, however, it is very hard for relativists to remain consistent.
46 Cf. Bunzl’s analysis of the inconsistencies of subaltern studies concerning peasant cons-
’
ciousness‘ in Bunzl, Real history, as footnote 8, 80–83.

ÖZG 10.1999.4 581

the objectivity question‘ in the U.S., That noble dream, fits perfectly into this
’
traditional conceptual grid.47
The postmodern debate on history is, in fact, little more than a new chap-
ter in this longstanding debate, because postmodernism has never broken with
the traditional conceptualizations of the problem of objectivity versus relativi-
’
ty‘. Postmodernism, with its denial of objectivity and its relativistic emphasis
on identity politics‘, is basically the classical relativist position in a new lin-
’
guistic guise.48 After my earlier critique of postmodern arguments against the
possibility of objective‘ history, it will come as no surprise that with regard to
’
the instrumentality of history, I also think the postmodern argument contains
a rational kernel, but has grossly overstated its case. Let me explain why.
As a starting point, I want to refer to Thomas Haskell, who has pointed
out the crucial difference between objectivity and neutrality. Striving after ob-
jectivity is not at all the same as striving after neutrality, although the two
issues have often been conflated. Objectivity is the collective result of respec-
ting the methodological rules of the discipline, open-mindedness, detachment,
mutual criticism and fairness. These conditions for objectivity are social and
individual at the same time.49
Striving after objectivity in this sense has nothing to do with neutrality
and is even compatible with strong political commitments. It is no wonder,
therefore, that many eminent historians have also been known for their ideo-
logical convictions. Relating doing history‘ to issues of identity, as relativists
’
and postmodernists often do, thus makes sense, but only on the condition that
both are related in adequate ways. By adequate I mean that we have to acknow-
ledge identity-politics‘ in historical knowledge production‘ without sacrificing
’ ’
the disciplinary status of history, which is based on its claim to truth and
objectivity.
This is possible as soon as we recognize three things:
1. Historical representations always involve constructions of identity, know-
ingly or unknowingly. Every historian who writes a history of Austria‘ or a
’
history of Canada‘ constructs at the same time a historical identity.
’
2. Because it is always feasible to develop various representations of the

47 Peter Novick, That Noble Dream. The Objectivity Question“ and the American Histo-
”
rical Profession, Cambridge 1988.
48 See Lorenz, Historical knowledge, as footnote 8, and Lorenz, Konstruktion, as footnote
2, chapter 14, for more elaborate arguments.
49 See Thomas Haskell, Objectivity is not neutrality: Rhetoric versus practice in Peter
’
Novick’s That noble dream‘, in: N. Fay et al. (eds.), History and theory. Contemporary
readings, Cambridge 1998, 303; Herta Nagl-Docekal, Die Objektivität der Geschichtswissen-
schaft. Systematische Untersuchungen zum wissenschaftlichen Status der Historie, München
1982, 227–243; Jürgen Kocka, Legende, Aufklärung und Objektivität in der Geschichtswis-
senschaft. Zu einer Streitschrift von Thomas Nipperdey, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 6
(1980), 449–455.

582 ÖZG 10.1999.4

 same‘ history from different perspectives, it is always possible to make a choice
’
in this regard. One could, for example, write a history of Austria or of Canada
as a state that was no nation and therefore became a federacy‘ or as a federal
’ ’
state that once mistook itself for a nation‘. The same history of Austria or
Canada can thus be represented from both a national and a federal perspective,
thereby representing national and federal historical identities.50
3. Historians’ choice of a guiding perspective is usually related to their own
political ideals and their identity-politics‘. This choice is possible because of
’
the reflexive character of historical identity. Human beings are what they are,
partly on the basis of how they define themselves in historical narratives.51
This does not, of course, mean that the choice between different perspec-
tives and narratives is free of empirical considerations, i. e. the evidence, or
arbitrary, as some postmodernists suggest. It would, for example, be difficult,
if not impossible, to construct the modern history of the Netherlands from a
federal perspective. It only means that the choice of identity-perspective is not
determined by the evidence, although it is restricted by the evidence. (Here
too, there is a plurality because of the under-determination of historical repre-
sentation by the evidence). Respect for the evidence and the methodological
rules remains paramount as long as historical representations are presented as
claims to knowledge with a universal validity. Instrumental history and legiti-
mizing history differ from scientific history on precisely this point: whenever
history is used in instrumental and legitimizing ways, history is made subser-
vient to other goals at the expense of the supremacy of evidence and methods.
Instrumental and legitimizing history have therefore acquired a bad reputati-
on within the discipline as specimens of partisan history – and rightly so. To
quote Eric Hobsbawm on this issue: To insist on the supremacy of evidence,
”
and the centrality of the distinction between verifiable historical fact and fic-
tion, is only one of the ways of exercising the historian’s responsibility, and,
as actual historical fabrication is not what it once was, perhaps not the most
important. Reading the desires of the present into the past, or, in technical
terms, anachronism, is the most common and convenient technique of creating
a history satisfying the needs of what Benedict Anderson has called imagined
’

50 See for Austria the special issue Welches Oesterreich?‘ of the Österreichische Zeitschrift
’
für Geschichtswissenschaften 7 (1996), nr. 4. For Canada see, for instance, Ramsay Cook,
Canada, Quebec and the uses of nationalism, Toronto 1995, and the forum Comparative
’
historiography: problems and perspectives‘, in: History and Theory 38 (1999), nr. 1, 25–100,
esp. my introduction, 25–40.
51 See Lorenz, Konstruktion, as footnote 2, 400–437. Charles Taylor makes the same point.
See Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the human sciences, New York 1985, 9: (...) the practices
”
which make up a society require certain self-descriptions on the part of participants. These
self-descriptions can be called constitutive“. (...) language does not only serve to depict
”
ourselves and the world, it also helps to constitute our lives“.

ÖZG 10.1999.4 583

communities‘ or collectives, which are by no means only national ones.“ 52 Hi-
”
storians, however microscopic, must be for universalism, not out of loyalty to
an ideal to which many of us remain attached but because it is the necessary
condition for understanding the history of humanity. For all human collectivi-
ties necessarily are and have been part of a larger and more complex world.
A history which is designed only for Jews (or African-Americans, or Greeks,
or women, or proletarians, or homosexuals) cannot be good history, though it
may be comforting to those who practise it.“ 53 I could not have expressed the
case for history any better or more clearly.

52 Eric Hobsbawm, On history, London 1997, 273. Evans’ book, In defence of history, as
footnote 1, was translated into German with the significant title Fakten und Fiktionen‘,
’
Frankfurt am Main 1998.
53 Ibidem, 277.

584 ÖZG 10.1999.4